


“i’ll help you study.”

by clickingkeyboards



Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [65]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Cambridge, Fluff, M/M, Studying, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:15:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22776991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: Bertie considers attending his lectures once again, with some coercing from Harold Mukherjee.Canon EraWritten for the sixty-fifth prompt in the '100 ways to say "I love you"' prompt list by p0ck3tf0x on Tumblr.
Relationships: Harold Mukherjee/Bertie Wells
Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [65]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533164
Kudos: 22





	“i’ll help you study.”

“Are you tired?”

“Mmh,” George replies from where he’s sagging against Alexander’s side, half-asleep on his feet as his co-ordination fails and his shoes rock over the uneven cobbles in stumbling strides. Harold and I are currently politely pretending to not know that he spent the entire denouement with his eyes barely open, having stayed awake for almost two days straight before it trying to understand the case and what it meant.

On the bright side, at least we know now.

That and we know that Alfred Cheng is not a murderer. While Alfred may be conceited, rather uppity, and an unnervingly cool customer, he does not deserve to be locked up for what he did not do.

I suppose that unkind people do not deserve what sometimes comes to them.

“How about you? Tired too?” I ask Alexander, who nods but with an enormous grin on his face.

“I’m solid!” he says, wrapping an arm tighter around George, supporting him under the arms as he droops against his best friend. “Investigating is terrific but I was so worried that Alfred Cheng would have to take the rap for him. Wouldn’t that have been awful!”

“It would have been, kid,” Harold replies, ruffling his golden hair before hanging back to walk beside me. “Sorry that you’ve been exiled to St. John’s, Bertie. Our heating is still utterly broken.”

“I would rather be in St. John’s with you than alone in Mauldin and alone with my thoughts,” I reply, taking my hand from my pocket and brushing my knuckles against his. With a huff of breath, he takes my hand in his, lacing our fingers together and holding on with a firm grip.

“You’re sweet.” He jabs a finger towards the stumbling Alexander, who is walking in a stopped sort of way to support George, who is practically asleep on his feet. Alexander is touching the height of five feet and ten inches, absurdly tall for a teenage boy. George is five feet five, meaning that many interactions between the two are about their heights.

_ “What are you, five?!” George yelled at Alexander while we were out shopping the day before the girls arrived. _

_ “Yes, five inches taller than you.” There was a long pause and then he added, “Please don’t stab me.” _

_ Taking no heed of Alexander’s pleas, George leapt onto him with jabbing fingers until Alexander was breathless and shrieking with laughter. _

And they think of themselves as pseudo-adult detectives.

“Alexander, you’re stumbling like a drunk,” Harols chuckles.

“Your brother is hea—” he begins to complain, only to see our intertwined hands and almost fall over. “Christ!”

George snaps alert with a jerk, reaching out to drag Alexander back to his feet. The two stumble for a moment before completely collapsing on the cobbles on top of each other. “OW!”

Harold bursts out laughing while I go to help them up. Alexander took the brunt of the fall, his entire blazer coated in brown and sludgy snow. This in comparison to George, who fell on top of Alexander and only ruined his trousers.

With a laugh booming from his chest, Harold shoots forward to haul the two of them to their feet. “You’re idiots,” he tells both of them.

George ends up leaning against his brother, Harold half-carrying him in his stumbling exhaustion. With no one else to walk beside, Alexander stalls until he’s beside me. “What’s with… all that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I retort in what I hope is an absolutely poisonous voice.

“I’m not blind. Neither is George.” With his hazel eyes, he looks up to me and I see that he  _ knows _ .

“Tell someone and you… you  _ die _ ,” I threaten him with a shaking tone, pointing my finger into his hands. “You understand, Arcady? You know what that will do to me, to Daisy, to my family. To Harold, and George, and to their  _ entire  _ family.”

“I know.” Alexander’s eyes are strangely knowing, glittering up at me in a glowing way. “I won’t tell.”

* * *

When we reach St. John’s, Alexander drags George up to their room and I wait for Harold to open the door to his own.

“Alright, Bertie?” he asks gently.

“Shaken.” I step into the chill of his room, making my way to the fire, ready to stoke it high with coal. “Thank the lord that we were climbing together when it happened.”

“No lord to thank,” he replies, walking over and laying a hand on my shoulder as I stoke the fire. “Only yours truly. I’ve been called many things but lord is a bit much.”

I huff a laugh as the fire sparks up, stepping back before the flames lick at my flammable sleeves. “Only a bit? You’re so modest, Harold. And…” With a sigh, I keep my gaze on the fire and allow my shoulders to hunch tightly, guarding me from something. I don’t know what. Certainly not Harold. My own thoughts, perhaps. “You and I were together that night. I knew that you couldn’t have done it.”

His arms come around behind me, slinging over my shoulders and meeting in a clasp over my shirt buttons. With a sigh, I lean back against him. “Wouldn’t you have believed me if I had told you it wasn’t me, dear?”

“I fucking believed Stephen, you ass,” I retort, feeling myself close off in a bruising ache that clamps my head as I recall the days in which I was convinced that my father had murdered someone.

I remember standing over my mother when she was unconscious after falling down the stairs. I was alone in the room, just looking down at her features. They were utterly unresponsive, not nasty in the slightest. She looked almost, a little bit, like Daisy. I remember how Stephen walked in, whispering across the room, “Bertie? Are you okay?”

“Ish,” I replied, hands sunk deep into my pockets. “I don’t care… that much… that she’s injured.”

A strange look came onto his face.

“Does that make me an ass?”

“Not unduly. It’s understandable, with all her…” He waved a hand. “I’ll call it fraternising.”

I remember laughing. Hard, wheezing, the sort that made my eyes teary and my chest ache afterwards as it heaved to draw in a breath. “What if it had been me that was pushed?”

“They would never have pushed you.”

“I am not him, dear,” Harold says, his voice humming against my skin.

“You almost could be.”

“Am I red-headed?” He spins me around to look at him, at his dark features and thatches of black hair. 

I bark a laugh. It is possibly the most amusing thing that he could have said. “Not at all.”

After a pause, I add, “I might start going to lectures again.”

Harold sighs, a happy sound of pure relief. “Thank the lord.”

“I’ve missed so much.” It’s almost not worth it, really. I would have so much to catch up, so much that I’ve missed.

He leans into my face and, riding on the breath that he lets out before we kiss, he says, “I’ll help you study.”


End file.
